


Father-Daughter Dance

by 500purplecats (Blaithin)



Series: Cat's Cradle [1]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst without a happy ending, Child Abandonment, Gen, bad parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blaithin/pseuds/500purplecats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maya drags Lucas on a road trip to find the father who abandoned her. It doesn’t go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father-Daughter Dance

“Our life is now a road trip movie,” Maya declared, tilting her face towards the sun. “We’re Thelma and Louisa.”

Lucas snorted, hands flexing on the steering wheel. “I think there’s one slight, but significant difference between me and Thelma. Also, not the road trip movie I think we should be aiming for.”

“Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Again: good beginning but worrying ending,” Lucas replied lightly.

“Ok, Huckleberry, who do you think we are?”

Lucas hummed thoughtfully and glanced over at her. Maya had kicked off her shoes at some point and her bare legs were stretched out across the dashboard: golden brown from a long, hot summer. She smiled sweetly at his look of disapproval, flexing her toes.

“How about Dean and Sal? From On the Road?” Lucas suggested finally.

Maya fake gagged, “Immature, misogynists? Leave me to die of dysentery in Mexico now.” She shrugged as Lucas side-eyed her in surprise. “What? I read… Fear and Loathing in LA?”

 “Isn’t that the one with all the drugs?”

“Yep.”

 Lucas pulled a face, “Do I, at least, get to be Johnny Depp?”

“Please,” Maya scoffed, flicking her sunglasses down over her eyes. “I’d be Johnny Depp. You’d be Dr Gonzo.”

The sticky heat which had followed them all day was finally started to abate, disappearing with the sun. Maya ran her fingers through her windswept hair, debating fishing out her hoodie. She glanced over at Lucas to see if he was starting to get cold as well, her gaze stumbling across the tension lines threatening at the edges of his eyes.

For all Lucas’ feigned casualness, Maya knew that he was worried. Lucas might understand, more than anyone, her reasoning for dragging him on an eight-hour drive across the country without telling anyone, but it didn’t mean he approved. The only reason he’d agreed to drive her to Ohio was because Maya had been willing to hitchhike if he didn’t. Maya turned away, feeling a stab of guilt.

 “You know. I think we’re forgetting the obvious.” Lucas said, interrupting her thoughts. “We’re Dumb and Dumber.”

“Dude.”

”Sweet.”

Lucas smiled at her, crowned gold in the dying light. There were worst people to go searching for your father with.

 00

The diner Lucas chose to stop at, smelt of eggs and burnt coffee.

The air conditioning whirled uselessly and the plastic coverings on their booth clung to their legs.  Maya had been in a million similar diners growing up. For years, she had survived on a diet of watered-down coke and assorted beige leftovers while her mom waited tables.  These types of restaurants had been the backdrop to her childhood and there was an easy familiarity to them.

From the slightly nervous glances Lucas was giving his thickly-laminated menu, Maya assumed the same wasn’t true for him. She watched him fondly. “Avoid anything with ‘fresh’ salad in it.”

Lucas sent her an alarmed look but took her advice when the waitress came to take their orders. His phone buzzed loudly against the table as they waited, and Lucas looked down at it guilty, pressing the mute button.

“Your mom again?” Maya asked quietly.

“Yeah. I better go and speak to her before she calls the cops.” He looked up at her, “Why isn’t your mom freaking out?”

Maya shrugged. “I told her I was staying at Riley’s.”

“Riley was ok with being used as an alibi?” Lucas asked incredulously.

“I didn’t exactly tell Riley.”

Maya hadn’t told Riley a lot of things recently.

She hadn’t told Riley that she and Lucas were driving to Ohio, and she hadn’t told Riley about the letter she had found in her mom’s dresser two weeks ago.

The envelope had been yellowing with age, dog-eared and covered in spidery, uneven writing.  The ink had long since bleed and most of the letter’s contents were incomprehensible, but it didn’t matter.  Maya knew the handwriting, she knew the scrawled signature: it was the same one printed in the single birthday card her Dad had sent her. 

The sinking feeling Maya had felt hadn’t left her since.

Googling the return address scrawled on the back of the envelope was easy. Explaining to Lucas why she needed him to drive her to Sugarcreek, Ohio had been harder.

“Does he know you’re coming?”

Maya shook her head, “I couldn’t find a phone number.”

 “What? What if he’s not there? What if he’s moved?” Lucas’s phone burst into life and he looked frustrated, angry, for the first time. He pushed the mute button roughly.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s not there. I didn’t really think about it.” Maya dragged her hands over her face, exhausted. “I just need to try. He’s might have been in Ohio this entire time and if he there, I need to find him.” Her voice cracked, “I need to ask him why.”

Lucas sighed; it was the same heavy sigh he’d given her when she’d first told him why she needed to get to Ohio. Maya was reminded once again that Lucas hadn’t visited his Dad voluntarily for eight months now. His anger at his own incompetent father made him unsympathetic to hers. That he’d agreed to take her anyway said all sorts of things about his innate goodness.

“Ok. We’ll find this address. If he’s not there, we’ll figure it out. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.” Lucas reassured.

Maya nodded, believing without a doubt that Lucas would drive her all the way to California if she asked.

“Right,” Lucas stood up, grimly, “I’m going to go and break the news to my mom that I won’t be home tonight because I’m driving to Ohio. I’ll be right back.”

00

Maya had been putting away money from her after-school, waitressing job since she was sixteen and Lucas’s allowance was more than generous, so they were able to get a motel room rather than battle through a night in Lucas’s car.

Not that it made much difference, Maya couldn’t sleep.

 Her stomach ached with nerves and her mind was full of a hundred, different scenarios as to how meeting her Dad would go. For a long time she had told herself she didn’t want to know her Dad; if he couldn’t be bothered with her, she didn’t want to know him. But the truth was something more complicated, Maya had spent years oscillating between longing and resentment, hurt and anger.

For all the mixed-up feelings Maya had about her Dad, she didn’t really remember him. The smoky smell of his cologne and a faint memory of him setting her on his shoulders and calling her pumpkin were all she had. She couldn’t even remember what he looked like and, God knew, her mom had never kept any pictures of him around. Maya had searched her own face, trying to find him, but it had never worked. She was a copy of her mother.

Lucas groaned, rolling over in the bed across the room. “You still awake?” he said, voice thick with sleep.

“Can’t sleep,” Maya whispered, “I keep trying to imagine what I’m going to say to him. ‘ _Hi, I’m the daughter you abandoned_ ’ seems like a bad opener somehow… Is this a bad idea? Am I crazy?”

Sheets crinkled as Lucas levered himself upright; in the dark, all Maya saw was a shadow and the glow of his eyes. “You not crazy; wanting your dad to be in your life isn’t crazy.”

Lucas had, as often happened, seen through the veil of sarcasm and jokes Maya hid herself behind.

Maya did want her dad in her life. In her fantasies, the ones she couldn’t make herself say aloud, Jason Cassidy wanted to be her Father. He would cry when he saw her. He would hug her and spent the next ten years trying to make up for all the time they’d lost. He would apologise for abandoning her, for not trying harder. They would have Father-Daughter dances. Maya wouldn’t be the girl whose Dad had walked out on his family; she would be the girl whose Dad came back.

“Maya.”

Maya blinked, letting her daydreams melt away. “Yeah?”

Lucas was staring at her, eyes glowing in the darkness. Maya could see the white gleam of his teeth as he worried his bottom lip. “Don’t… Don’t expect too much, ok?”

Maya nodded. _Too Late._

00

“You ready?” Lucas asked.

Maya stared frozen at the small, peeling white house, her toes curling with sudden desire to run away.

Lucas rested his hand on her shoulder worriedly. “You don’t have to; we could go back to the car.”

Maya shook her head. She hadn’t travelled all the way to Ohio to give up at the last moment. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Will you wait here for me?”

Lucas nodded, forehead knotted and mouth tense. Maya knew he wanted to come with her, but she couldn’t deal with his protectiveness right now, this was private.  Maya shrugged Lucas’ hand off her shoulder, walked across the street and knocked on Jason Cassidy’s front door.

Maya could hear a dog barking, a man muttering as he stomped closer. Her stomach was in knots; she was going to be sick or faint before he even opened the door. It seemed to take a long time before the door was answered.

The man who jammed his shoulder into the doorframe was small and overly lean; his cheekbones stretched like butter knives through papery skin and there were deep wrinkles pressed around his eyes and mouth. He smirked at her, eyes cool. “Darling, please tell me you’re eighteen.”

Maya recoiled. “No!”

He stared at her expectantly.

“Are you Jason Cassidy?” At his nod, Maya continued shakily, “I’m Maya. My mom is Katy Hart. I’m your daughter.”

The man’s face twisted. “Does your mamma know you’re here, kid?”

Maya shook her head, “I found a letter. It had your address on it.” She looked at him imploringly, “Please I just want to talk.”

Jason Cassidy rubbed at his mouth, stretching the skin beneath his fingers and cursed. Finally, he stepped backward, gesturing her inside. “Come in,” he said gruffly.

Maya trailed after Jason, glancing around as the house unfolded into a series of crowded, square rooms. He led her into the small kitchen, sliding a cigarette into the corner of his mouth. “So, what did you want to talk about, kid?” Jason asked, lighting up in a practised movement.

Maya hovered in the doorway. Her stomach was a dead weight, her throat swollen.

A curl of smoke drifted between them and Jason snapped his lighter shut impatiently, “Look, I don’t have all day. You going to speak?”

“You’re my dad,” Maya said stupidly.

Jason smirked, “I’m a lot of people’s dads.” He turned away from her to drop his lighter on the counter. Maya’s gaze slid off him, and caught on the scribbled child’s drawing stuck on the fridge. Besides it there was a picture of Jason and a blonde woman, arms around each other, holding a smiling child. He had another kid.

Jason made a noise as she stared, and flicked a thick set of papers taped next to the picture, “Water bills,” He said. “You want to help your old man old? You look pretty rich.”

“What?”

Jason laughed, holding up his hands, “It’s a joke. Lighten up.”

Maya’s eyes went back to the fridge. “You have another kid.”

Jason touched the picture gently, “My girlfriend’s son.”

“Oh…”

Silence stretched out between them, dragging and painful. Jason puffed at his cigarette, leaning away from her. In all Maya’s imagined scenarios, both the good and bad ones, she’d never thought it would be this uncomfortable.

“Look, this is messed up. You can’t just appear out of nowhere.” Jason said, “Why did you come here, kid. What do you want from me?”

Maya gaped at him. She wanted him to be her father, she wanted him to acknowledge that what he’d done was wrong. She wanted him to be someone other than this hard-eyed, uncaring man. Maya swallowed hard, fantasies of hugs and father-daughter dances evaporated

 “I thought….”

“Yeah I know what you thought.” Jason said coldly, “You thought you’d turn up on my doorstep and we’d have some big TV drama reunion. That isn’t how these things work.”

Maya wrapped her arms around herself, feeling raw and stupid.  “You disappeared from my life when I was four years old. Where were you?”

“Look,” Jason said dismissively. “I’m sorry; things didn’t turn out great for us and a lot of that is on me. But I can’t change the past, so why bother dwelling on it.”

Maya couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, the lack of responsibility, the lack of empathy. “I want to know why you left.” she demanded.

Jason shrugged. “Me and Katy had some problems, we spent all our time arguing:  over money, her parents, over you. I ended things, it was for the best.”

“Breaking up with her didn’t stop me from being your daughter. Why didn’t you call me? You could have visited me, something. Didn’t you care?”

Jason was silent for a moment, his eyes watching Maya dispassionately, unfeeling in the face of her anger.  A lazy twist of smoke escaped his mouth. “Things stopped working; I didn’t want the life I had in New York.”

Maya shook. “I was in New York.”

He shrugged.

“Did you ever want me? Did you ever miss me?”

Jason’s nostrils flared, “Sorry, kid.”

“Right. Ok.” Her voice cracked.

Maya tried not to run out the house, tried not to feel like she was fleeing, but it was a close thing.

Unsurprising, Jason didn’t follow her.

00

Maya wasn’t crying.

Her throat was burning and her eyes were stinging but she wasn’t crying. She ran out into the street, barrelling past Lucas.

“Maya!”

She was halfway across the street when Lucas caught up to her, grabbing her arm and forcing them to a stop. 

“Get off me!” she yelled, spinning around and pushing at his chest. Lucas staggered at her unexpected anger, but didn’t let go. Maya choked, hitting at his hands, pulling against his hold. Lucas was the better part of a foot taller than her, but the muscles in his shoulders and arms strained as he struggled to hold her still.

“Maya, what happened!” he demanded loudly.

“Nothing! Just let me go. I want to go. I need to get out of here.”

Lucas released her and Maya stumbled backwards. She strode back to the car, hands shaking as she opened the door.

Seconds later, Lucas slid into the driver’s seat, sending her a worried look.

“Maya…”

Maya shook her head, “Please, please just get me out of here.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“Ok, ok,” Lucas mumbled and slammed the car into gear.

From the protective veil of her hair, Maya got one final glimpse of the small, peeling white house owned by Jason Cassidy. The man himself was stood in the doorway, a small, isolated figure. Maya looked away.

00

Twenty minutes later, Maya told Lucas to pull over.

The car was still moving as she threw the door open and gagged. Lucas hurried around the car, and swept her hair out of her face, rubbing gently at her heaving back.

It was Lucas’s kindness that broke her; hot, angry tears prickled at the corners of Maya’s eyes and seconds later big, body-shaking sobs wracked through her making her feel like she was going to break apart. Ignoring the bile on the ground between them, Lucas dragged her upright, folding her up against him. His grip was so tight Maya felt like her ribs were straining.

“It was awful,” she said brokenly. “He was awful. I can’t believe I ever wasted time wanting that bastard in my life.”

“I’m sorry.” Lucas said, it into her hair. “It’s his loss. You’re amazing. He’s an idiot for not wanting to be your dad.”

“He lived eight hours away and he never bothered to see me, or write to me? He didn’t care for me for over a decade, why did I think this would change things. Why did I think, for a second, he would be able to be better?” Maya gripped Lucas furiously. “I hate him. I hate him.”

Lucas was silent, still holding her. There was nothing he could say.

Maya shuddered violently against Lucas, twisting her fists into his crumpled white shirt.  “I’m going to be a great artist, I’m going to have this amazing life, with an amazing family and screw him if he doesn’t want to be in it! Fuck him! It’s his loss."

Lucas hummed in agreement.

  "You know he’s looking after his girlfriend’s kid? He managed to take in some other man’s kid but couldn’t even send me a call to say he was alive? How dare he; that bastard, that bastard…” Maya felt herself crack. “Why does he want them and not me? Why doesn’t he love me?”

Maya’s fury fled her. Her throat locked up, and the words died inside her. Lucas held onto her tighter, holding her together as the awful, raw hurt threatened to overwhelm her.

“Fuck him.” Lucas snarled as she cried, his fingers shaking with anger. “Fuck him. You are one of the amazing people I have ever met and he's an idiot for every letting you go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Maya let herself cry until her the tears ran out. Lucas held her through them. After a while, she stepped away, leaving the safety of his arms.

“Let’s go home.” She said, her voice scratchy and weak.

“Ok.” Lucas said, “Ok, it will be ok.”

Maya nodded and slid back into the car. She rested her forehead on the window, folding her legs against her chest. She felt like a shelled husk, empty inside. Maya glanced over at Lucas.

“Hey Lucas.”

“Yeah?”

“This has been awful, the worst road trip ever… but thanks for coming with me.”

Lucas glanced at her, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing, “Anytime.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to The Deadbeat Dads Society. 
> 
> Part of my Girl meets World Fanfiction Bingo. See my Tumblr for details or to request a fic: http://500purplecats.tumblr.com/


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